I think sockopen
www.google.com 80 might be better with the commercial site, especially if they have different IP addresses for web access than other com access they might have.
FEX
* Dns resolving google.com
google.com resolved to 72.14.207.99
-
* Dns resolving
www.google.comwww.google.com resolved to 66.102.7.99
though I am not sure in this case if you would or would not be able to access the google info you wanted.